Monday, August 6, 2007

O-Line Stats Part Two

Now that we have developed a formula for rating offensive lines, let’s apply it to the 2006 season and see if we can draw any sort of conclusions. First, the numbers for the pass blockers.

Team

Sks

Mod Att

Sks/Att

PSCORE

ARKANSAS

9

311

2.980

1.467

TENNESSEE

19

434

4.578

0.843

GEORGIA

17

359

4.971

0.690

LSU

19

387

5.163

0.615

VANDY

19

356

5.638

0.430

FLORIDA

23

422

5.764

0.380

SOUTH CAROLINA

24

413

6.170

0.222

ALABAMA

28

421

7.125

-0.151

MISS ST

29

389

8.056

-0.514

KENTUCKY

39

475

8.945

-0.861

OLE MISS

29

309

10.357

-1.412

AUBURN

35

317

12.411

-2.214

Average

24.167

382.75

6.739

Two things stick out: Arkansas was much better than everyone else and Auburn was much worse. Let’s take on Auburn first because it’s become sort of an accepted belief Auburn will have a bad line this year in their quest to replace two All-SEC linemen.

Well, their offensive line could not be worse, and those awards were a mistake (okay, maybe not for Grubbs). Allowing over 12 sacks per 100 pass attempts is Oakland Raiders level of bad. It is so bad you don’t even immediately notice how bad Ole Miss’ pass protection was. And it comes without a built-in excuse. Teams with running quarterbacks tend to allow more sacks because the running quarterback occasionally gets caught for a loss and that counts as a sack.

Which makes Arkansas even more impressive. 2.98 sacks per 100 attempts? Arkansas’ line was absolutely dominant in pass protection. The only other surprise is that Tennessee’s maligned offensive line ranked second best in the conference.

Rushing

Team

Mod Rush

Mod Yds

Yds/Att

RSCORE

ARKANSAS

530

3129

5.904

2.080

LSU

431

2009

4.661

0.713

VANDY

366

1683

4.598

0.644

FLORIDA

453

2074

4.578

0.622

SOUTH CAROLINA

390

1727

4.428

0.457

AUBURN

435

1722

3.959

-0.060

GEORGIA

409

1535

3.753

-0.286

TENNESSEE

363

1270

3.499

-0.566

OLE MISS

393

1312

3.338

-0.742

ALABAMA

427

1396

3.269

-0.818

KENTUCKY

372

1008

2.710

-1.434

MISS ST

365

935

2.562

-1.597

Average

411.167

1650

4.013

And… there’s Arkansas again. They had three 1st team All-SEC lineman, and it seems the SEC got that one right. They were the best run block and best pass block unit, and they did both by fairly wide margins. In fact, their gap in run blocking makes their advantage in pass blocking almost seem slight. LSU had the second best run blocking line, and they were closer to 10th place than they were to SEC-leading Arkansas.

No real surprises at the bottom, with Mississippi State bringing up the rear. But Kentucky and Alabama probably didn’t expect to have such poor running games. Kentucky had one of their best seasons in a decade, and it came with a line that couldn’t open up a hole for anybody. Alabama’s expected improvement needs to come from some serious improvement in the run blocking. Because last year’s effort won’t get in done.

Overall

Team

PSCORE

RSCORE

OLINE

ARKANSAS

1.47

2.08

354.72

LSU

0.62

0.71

132.83

VANDY

0.43

0.64

107.37

FLORIDA

0.38

0.62

100.24

SOUTH CAROLINA

0.22

0.46

67.90

GEORGIA

0.69

-0.29

40.42

TENNESSEE

0.84

-0.57

27.75

ALABAMA

-0.15

-0.82

-96.87

MISS ST

-0.51

-1.60

-211.05

OLE MISS

-1.41

-0.74

-215.43

AUBURN

-2.21

-0.06

-227.39

KENTUCKY

-0.86

-1.43

-229.48

Not surprisingly, Arkansas is #1. But what is interesting is that the teams neatly organized themselves into three tiers:

TOP TIER Arkansas, LSU, Vanderbilt, Florida

Three of those teams make sense, but Vandy? Now, some of that could be a factor of who on earth would bother to blitz Vandy, but the running game speaks for itself. Vanderbilt’s line performed well all season long. I’d also like to point out that LSU’s line ranked second without having a single player ranked 1st or 2nd team All-SEC. Florida is widely considered the second best line, with three All-SEC linemen (one 1st teamer), but they really weren’t that far off from second place.

MIDDLE TIER South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama

Actually, Bama is much worse than the other three teams listed but they are much better than the bottom four so they hang out on an island. I just lump them in with the others to be nice. And for symmetry.

Strangely enough, SC ranks as the toughest line but they are the only one of the four without an All-SEC lineman,

BOTTOM TIERMiss State, Ole Miss, Auburn, Kentucky

These teams were flat out lousy.

Actually, Auburn’s run blocking was decent, but their pass blocking was so terrible it almost ranked them as the worst line in the league. Kentucky gets that dubious honor despite having one of their best overall seasons. They did it the old-fashioned way, by stinking in all phases of the game.

And what are we going to do with the state of Mississippi?

But let us all bow before Arkansas. And be thankful most of their line graduated and they will hopefully return to mediocrity.